LaPdroiue. 30 PHILLIP'S COMMISSION. 1787 Equally significant is the following passage in the Instruc- tions with reference to Norfolk Island : — iaia*dtohe Norfolk Island being represented as a spot which may here- occupied, after become useful, you are, as soon as circumstances will admit of it, to send a small establishment thither to secure the same to us, and prevent its being occupied by the subjects of any other European Power. French The Only other Power which was at all likely to occupy
- '*'^'* Norfolk Island was Prance ; and the order to take possession
of it as soon as possible shows that the probability of its being occupied by the Prench was distinctly present to the mind of the British Government. The repeated injunctions conveyed to Phillip to lose no time in sailing with his fleet and in disembarking on his arrival, point to the same conclusion. Possibly it was apprehended that the expedition sent out by the French Government in 1785, under the command of La Perouse,* included some design ^o occupy the great territory discovered by Captain Cook. That such an apprehension would not have been altogether an un- reasonable one under the circumstances — although, as a matter of fact, it would have been unfounded — ^is a very natural inference from the chronic state of jealousy which then existed between the two Powers. There is nothing*, however, in the Private Instructions from the King to the Hte Sieur de la Perouse, published by the French Government with the narrative of his voyage, that can be said to justify the suspicion. He was directed to examine the north and . west coasts of New Holland; consequently he could not have had any design upon the east or south coast. During his stay in Queen Charlotte's Sound, he was to gain intelligence whether the English have formed, or entertain
- The name is aometimes spelt Peyrouse, as, for instance, in Phillip^s Voy-
age, where it is stated that the latter "is the right form of that offioer's name **; p. 68 n. But as it is spelt P^rouse in the authorised French edition of his voyage, published in 1799, and also on the medal struck on the oc* casion of the expedition, there can be little doubt that Peyrouse was not then considered the right form of the name in France ; although it may have been the antiquated form of it. Digitized by Google
